The highly touted troubadour plays with the Royal City Band at the Crystal Ballroom on March 21.

Given his traditional, folk style, it didn’t seem like Northwest-raised singer-songwriter Josh Ritter could get more back to basics. Then his marriage to singer-songwriter Dawn Landes fell apart. On The Beast in Its Tracks, the songsmith’s first full-length since 2010 (he wrote a novel in the meantime that Stephen King said, “shines with a compressed lyricism that recalls Ray Bradbury in his prime”), Ritter draws from music’s oldest, deepest inspiration source: heartbreak.

He’ll be joined at the Crystal Ballroom on May 22 by his backing band, the Royal City Band. And we’re giving away a pair of tickets.

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